Can Such Things Be?

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

—

Title

Can Such Things Be?

Language

en

Book source

Global Grey

Description max 80 words

Ambrose Bierce's *Can Such Things Be?* is a haunting collection of eerie tales blending ghostly mysteries with unsettling psychological tension. Set against backdrops ranging from haunted forests to desolate deserts, these stories explore the thin line between reality and hallucination, questioning whether the supernatural or madness is the true terror.

Summary up to 500 words

Published in 1893, Ambrose Bierce's *Can Such Things Be?* challenges rational skepticism through a collection of atmospheric and often tragic narratives that blur the line between the natural and supernatural. The volume opens with "The Death of Halpin Frayser," where a lost prospector awakens in a blood-saturated forest, haunted by invisible existences and a terrifying vision of his own mother, suggesting that death can resurrect the spirit as a vengeful entity. In "A Jug of Sirup," banker Alvan Creede experiences a profound illusion at the closed store of the deceased Silas Deemer, seeing the dead merchant serve him syrup before a mob, driven by fear and superstition, destroys the establishment. The narrative shifts to "Staley Fleming's Hallucination," where a man plagued by visions of a sinister Newfoundland dog is revealed to be haunted by the spirit of his enemy, Atwell Barton, whose ghostly dog killed him. In "A Resumed Identity," a narrator finds his own tombstone in the ruins of Carcosa, realizing he has died and returned to life as a spirit, only to witness the decay of the ancient city. The collection concludes with "The Stranger," a tale of four prospectors trapped in a cave by Apaches. One by one, they commit suicide to avoid capture, but the story ends with a chilling twist: three of the dead men appear alive on the mesa, suggesting that death is not the end, or that the line between the living and the dead is far more porous than reason allows. Throughout, Bierce utilizes a cynical, sharp wit to undercut the supernatural elements, leaving the reader to decide if the events are divine interventions, psychological breakdowns, or genuine manifestations of the unseen world.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

Download URL

https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/ambrose-bierce_can-such-things-be.epub

Local file path

data/epubs/url-a31c6740e74724d1.epub

Download EPUB

Downloaded at

2026-07-01 19:16 UTC

Categories

• Fiction
• Horror